461 Days of Venice
by Clara-Lis
Summary: Some insight on Vesper Lynd's life in Venice, after surviving her suicide attempt. Preview of a future multi-chapter story, to be "released" once I finish Ne Me Quitte Pas. All the Vesper/Bond pairing lovers, enjoy!


**_Olá todos! Hello Everyone!_**

**_I know I still need to update "Ne Me Quitte Pas", it's been what, a month since I've last updated? All I can say is that many things have happened lately, I've been VERY busy at work, I'm a professor with tons of papers to grade and students to orientate. Also, my son had caught pneumonia and ended up in a hospital, but thank God he's all better now and I feel free to write and not be so worried anymore._**

**_Merci beaucoup!_**

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_461 Days of Venice_

She could feel her lungs burn, from the lack of oxygen from the water of the Venetian canals. She could feel the pain that caused to the veins in her brain. Most of all, however, she could feel that punch, that pang, that pulse in her heart, the very one caused by love. That awful pain, that made you want to die and live at the same time, overcame her and by some sort of miracle, as her body began to sink, her once shut eyes burst open, and she found the strength to reach for the key in her dress pocket, and pull the iron elevator door open, James helping her as fast as he could, until he caught her in his arms and she fainted, exhausted and he swam with her to the rooftop.

The doctor's face was but a palm of distance from hers. She hated physical contact with people she didn't know, she hated the fact that someone was invading her privacy, her vision and that someone wasn't the person she needed to see. Where was he?

She tried to open her mouth, to speak, but nothing came out. Her throat was as dry as the Sahara desert, probably and she felt like an infant, knowing exactly what she wanted to say, but not being able to, uttering only gibberish and being stared at as if she were some out-of-this-world spectacle. The doctor said something, she couldn't grasp but a few words, her mind was busy and her body was tired but she wouldn't give up, not until she saw him. Unfortunately, the doctors didn't think the same. The nurse came towards her, checked the screen and injected some sort of medicine in her drip and in a moment, everything was black and empty and lonely again.

She awoke and urged her eyes open, however, she was blinded by the white lights, the white ceiling and the white scrubs of her nurse. _"James..."_ she whispered, a single tear escaping the corner of her eye. She didn't know it but six years had passed since the last time she opened her eyes. After that, she had awoken briefly five times, and every time the doctors became more motivated in her cause and more intrigued by the fact she didn't re-emerge from her coma at once. In coma, out of coma, in coma, out of coma. That had been the drill.

The nurse, for the first time in her twenty years of work, had tears in her brown eyes, moved by the fact that a patient she dedicated herself to for all this time, when everyone had given up, had sprung back to life and even spoken. She held the young woman's small hand. So frail, so pale, so gentle and soft. The woman stroke her hand lovingly through the dark, long tresses of the patient and said a prayer of thanks to her who was the mother of all mothers and daughters, the mother of The Lord Himself. _"Grazie, Madonna, Grazie Dio, Grazie Sant'Anna, Grazie Gesu, Grazie, grazie e grazie, Maria Madre de Dio."_ She finalized, kissing the small golden cross at her neck. The nurse turned to the patient and smiled warmly. _"All is well, please try to stay this time, they keep saying I've gone mad... Try not to sleep anymore, Eva." _The patient, Eva, complied, winking twice in confirmation.

Three months and eleven days passed as Eva, the patient recuperated from her coma, going through session after session of physical therapy, re-learning how to walk, throw, jump, wave and keep things in her grip. She went through voice therapy as well, to overcome the shortness of breath when she spoke and also through mental therapy, of which she had two sessions a week.

The happy nurse became her friend and companion and even offered her her humble home to stay in, while she re-settled herself in Venice. The nurse was a widow, with a grown son living in Switzerland and who was married with a son. The nurse's progeny however, didn't seem to care much about her as he never called and his mother sometimes cried.

It took some time for the patient to convince the nurse that her name was not Eva, but Vesper, which the nurse thought to mean almost the same thing. Out of spite, the woman called her _Vespera_, meaning eve—like Christmas Eve or New Years Eve—in Latin.

Vesper would go for walks around town everyday and during the nights, she would teach English for whomever wished to learn, usually frequenting for such, restaurants and cafés and sometimes bookstores. She had four students now, Ludmila, who was a school teacher and wished to visit London; Vittorio who was a vagabond, according to his mother, an exceptional cook and Hostel owner; Erico who was a poet and Piero, her favorite, who was a divorcee with two children, Pietro and Giulia, who wanted badly to visit Australia and "hop with the Kangaroos".

With the students she had, her pay wasn't very high, but Donna Eugenia, Vittorio's mother would have her for dinner both nights of the week Vito had lessons and both her and the nurse on Saturdays for lunch at her trattoria. Ludmila was helping Vesper to make contact with some companies and organizations in Venice and even in Ravenna, in hopes of finding her a job as an accountant, but being a foreigner and having been in a coma for six, nearly seven years weren't very positive in the eyes of the employers.

Ludmila also had been the one to introduce Vesper to Padre Emilio, who was friends with a history professor at the Venetian University, and who needed someone who was versed in English, French and Italian and above average in mathematics and physics, to help him with dozens of Renaissance-aged books he had uncovered and was trying to decipher. Needless to say, Vespera had gotten the job.

Erico had been the one to introduce a skeptical Vesper to the magic of poetry and lyricism, reading to her two verses of Dante Alighieri's Inferno every night, whether they were at the end of a lesson or through a phone call or a walk by the canals. Erico had been the first man Vespera had felt attracted to in six years, however, she still remembered James and continued to be faithful.

Erico had taken her to the opera one night, giving Vespera the very sought out opportunity to debut the beautiful red dress the nurse had given her, worthy of a Valentino, when she completed her first year out of coma. The dress wasn't designer made or anything, but it was long and of the finest silk and fit her body beautifully, gracing her curves and although it had a very nice décolatage, it still left plenty for the imagination. Vesper had carefully dried and combed each of her brown curls, one by one, and arranged her hair with the help of bobby pins into a cascade of beautiful, rebellious curls escaping from her up-do.

At her ears, was a gold and ruby pair of earrings that the nurse had brought from her honeymoon to Turkey, over thirty years ago and the red shawl she wore had been a birthday gift from Ludmila, who had found it for a surprisingly cheep price at the flee market. Vespera kept trying to think of ways to bring Ludmila and Erico, who were both eight years Vesper's junior together, after knowing the two for a while, separately, she knew they would make a great match and Erico had already expressed a grandiose curiosity of meeting Ludmila, who Vesper so fondly spoke of.

Piero was a different story. He was the owner of a tourist agency, which he bought at a whim, from an elderly couple deep in mortgages and full of debts to pay, not to mention the lack of energy to run something as chaotic as an agency and deal with the very picky clients and also those who many times were ignorant and or annoying. The funny thing was, Piero knew nothing of tourism, he was actually a photographer, but having won the guardianship of Pietro and Giulia, he had decided to change tactics to prove to his ex, a very successful surgeon named Camilla, that he could find himself a "decent" job and prove that he wasn't the self-absorbing pseudo-artist she thought he was.

Vesper thought him to be hilarious and impulsive, something she herself had a hard time being. Piero had proved to be a good friend, and although he was still beginning his business and therefor had no money to pay for her services, Vesper volunteered and helped with the accountance.

Once, she had studied a week straight about Venetian history and architecture, having professore Bernardo Vico, the one she worked with at the university tutor her, so that she could guide a bus full of conservative Americans, anti-social Brits who were very sensitive about the proper English speaking, often bickering with the Americans and overly dramatic French teenagers who were having their end-of-course class trip. Needless to say, Vesper was never again going to be a guide for Piero, not in a million years, not even if he offered her a chest of gold.

Out of all things that happened to her in those 461 days of Venice, it was making new friends and consequently a family like she hadn't had since the death of her parents at age ten, that truly made Vesper or Vespera or Eva, rediscover the true meaning and importance that had life. In sum, if she hadn't lived those 461 days of Venice, she would have never found the self-love, the strength, security and energy necessary to go after James, the very one she just could not stop thinking about or needing... or wanting.

_"__London here I come..."_ Vesper told herself, as she embarked in the airplane, leaving the tearful nurse, her new mother,_ Elena_, behind. But not for long. She'd return, as soon as she completed her mission, she promised the priest, Padre Emilio; she promised the Madonna—but most of all, she promised herself—and to Vesper, there was nothing more important to her than that.


End file.
